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The Fox Patrol 
in the Open 

y 

by CV L. Gilman 

Pictures by L. V. Mero 


PUBLISHED AT MINNEAPOLIS 
BY 

The Buzza Company 

Anno Domini 1912 



Copyright, 1912, by 

The Buzza Company 

Minneapolis 


©CI.A309610 


To the most loyal comrade he has found on any 
trail , to the best companion who has ever shared his 
campfire — his WIFE — this book is dedicated with 
the homage of the author. 


THE LAW. 

Now this is the Law of the Fighting Man , 

Come down through the countless years, 

"You must fight and work as best you can 
That The Woman's life be free from fears." 

For this your arm is muscled thick > 

For this your courage blazes high. 

For this your brain is cool and quick — 

That The Woman's lips need breathe no sigh. 
Whether it be in the slashing fight 
Or in toil while slow Time creeps — 

'Tis yours to guard while your eyes see light. 

The Shrine that The Woman £eep$. 

Oh, the war is old as the Birth o' Things 
And as new as the unpaced mile — 

And men still toil for the Hand that Clings 
As once they died for The Woman's smile. 

C. L. C. 


FOREWORD. 

Adventures abound everywhere for the adventuresome, and 
those of you who follow with me this trail of the Fox patrol, 
will see that those enterprising scouts have lost none of their 
facility for getting into trouble nor any of their pluck and 
ingenuity in getting out of it. 

We will meet again that excellent organization, the Ojib- 
way troop — would that we had time to know better the six 
patrols besides the Foxes who compose it — and encounter a 
new factor in the problem of every boy’s life — the girl. 

She is the keeper of that temple in which all that is mo6t 
precious of all the things men have worked and fought and 
died for during ages beyond the counting of our histories are 
stored; a temple to be entered with reverence or not at all, 
lest the angry fires of outraged nature scorch body and soul 
of the one who dare profane it by lack of respect for its 
appointed keeper. 

This is largely the story of how the scouts fought diverse foes 
to keep the girls under their care from harm; to make their 
way clear before them, to defend them in mortal peril and 
to shield them from hardship. And they play their part well, 
fulfilling the law that, while the breath remains in his body, 
an honorable man must work and fight to protect any wom- 
an in need of the strength and courage given him for that very 
purpose. 

Now the time comes to leave for a while the trail of the 
Fox patrol. Perhaps, some other day, if you wish it, I will 
again open its log book and read you some more of the stories 
written there. 

C. L. Gilman. 

Minneapolis, 1912. 



The Fox Patrol in the Open 
I. 

HOSTILES ON THE TRAIL 

‘ROCUSES a-bloom before Easter lured the 
Fox patrol to a strange trial by fire and snow 
one March morning. 

It was an unnatural world into which Con 
Colville led his patrol, already famed for ex- 
ploits on the river and in the woods. Though 
it was fully a month before the proper time for 
spring to begin in that northern state in which Saukville was 
situated, the trees were already putting out leaves for the 
second time and the purple flower with its heavy, hairy, green 
protective sheath was in bloom on the dry, sunny hillsides — 
the flower which we of the northwest mistakenly name the 
Mayflower. 

A dry summer and fall had been followed by an almost 
snowless winter. Winds of unusual warmth ushered in the 
blustery month of March, dried the scant snow from the roots 
of sun-burned grass and blighted shrubs and tempted the trees, 
even the cautious oak, to unfold their first tender leaves. 

Then came the cold, but without snow or rain, and the 
leaves were nipped in the bud. Again the warm wind blew and 
the feebler buds, which had been slow in awakening at the 



10 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

treacherous summons of the unnatural heat and so escaped the 

following frost, began to unfold. 

And the last year’s grasses were dry, dry as the tinder which 
awaits the spark as the anxious scout plies his bow on the In- 
dian friction drill intent upon making fire in primitive fashion. 

Early as the Foxes were abroad there were others on the 
trail. As they swung across the bridge to the east side of the 
great river which split Saukville in two they were greeted by 
hoarse yells of defiance from the top of the hill beyond and 
knew that the “slabtown gang” was out again. 

Now the “Slabtowns” were a source of endless amusement 
to the Foxes, as they were the cause of inward dread to most 
other patrols of Ojibway troop. The Foxes hid, fought or 
ran away — all seven as one scout — as suited the demands of 
the occasion. 

Other patrols might be broken up and dealt with piece-meal 
but it was the Foxes, long staves leveled to the charge, who 
broke and scattered the yelling mob of “Slabtowns” which 
tried to break up the first public parade of the troop — bowled 
them over on their backs, scattered them when they tried to 
rally and finally drove them, breathless, to take refuge in their 
own quarter of the town. 

Scouts of other patrols might be caught alone and beaten 
up with comfort and safety but that big, red-headed Nichols 
of the Foxes had knocked their ablest bruisers right and left 
and then run, yelping like a kicked dog — it was the “call 
of the Fox” — just out of their reach until he led them past an 
alley from which a well aimed volley of stones swept his pur- 
suers fore and aft. 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 1 1 

And it was Con Colville, leader of the Foxes — a great 
prize — left bound and gagged in the “gang’s” cherished 
shanty hidden in a ravine near the river bank, who clawed, 
bit and wriggled his way out of his bonds and then coolly 
postponed his get-away until he had set fire to the shack — 
monument to the gang’s sole spasm of industry. 



there was genuine hatred in the hoarse yells of de- 
hurled at the little knot of scouts who wheeled sharply 
river at a jog trot, apparently oblivious to the insults 
shouted after them. 

Still, animosity ended with yelling, for, if the truth be told, 
the cigaret poisoned lungs of the gangsters were unequal to the 
task of overtaking the deep chested Foxes, even had the Slab- 
towns been minded to try another sample of the trouble — for 
them — which traveled under that yellow and green pennon. 

While the Foxes are hiking on down the river, patrol en- 
sign waving and that wise, fox-like dog, their mascot, swinging 


So 

fiance 

down 


12 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

his bushy tail like a drum-major’s baton far ahead, let’s take a 

look at this gang which disliked them so. 

There were nearly a score of them, some ragged, some 
well dressed. Their ages ranged anywhere from sixteen to 
twenty and their badge was the sign of the yellow-stained 
finger tips. Taken one at a time they were not a bad look- 
ing lot. Some few had low foreheads, but the bull-dog jaw 
which is usually associated with that sign of a brutish nature 
was conspicuously lacking — bull dogs do not hunt in packs but 
have the courage to fight alone. 

Just what this gang had against the scouts in the first place 
it would be hard to say. They professed to despise them as 
goody-goodys and mollycoddles — and yet the littlest scout of 
the troop had feats of physical endurance and dogged pluck 
to his credit which were beyond the courage, if not the strength, 
of the toughest gangster. 

Probably they were actuated by that meanness of a weak 
and cowardly spirit which finds a sort of apology for its own 
failings in deriding the achievements of others. This had been 
strengthened by the denunciation of the whole scout movement 
by certain of their fathers who found in the manly independence 
and self-reliant industry of the scouts a stinging, though un- 
spoken, rebuke of their own way of life. 

Whatever the reason, they had started nearly a year before 
to pick trouble with Ojibway troop and — instead of being 
pleased and gratified at the promptness with which they had 
been accommodated — had gotten more soured and bitter with 
every reverse until the thought of “those dude tin soldiers” 
staled their cigarets, took their minds off the wild exploits of 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 1 3 

“Frank Merriwell” and “Diamond Dick,” and generally 
poisoned their enjoyment of life. 

Today, having gotten wind of the expedition of which the 
Foxes were the trail-blazers, they had resolved to hang on its 
flanks and spoil its pleasures. So, while the Foxes were 
traversing the path by the river’s edge at the “scout’s pace’’ 
of fifty steps walking and fifty steps runnings, which eat up the 
miles at the rate of five an hour, the Slabtowns alternately ran 
and slouched along the bluff which paralleled their course a 
quarter of a mile inland. 


II. 

CHOPPING A TRAIL. 


“We ought to have stopped and chased those rough-necks 
back to Slabtown,” declared Red Nichols, when the patrol 
halted for five minutes’ rest after half-an-hour of hiking — 
“Rest before you get tired” was the rule which enabled the 
Foxes to make every trail they blazed a long one. 

“Now they’ll come snooping along behind and like as not 
jump that gang of girls and kids and take their lunch away 
from them.” 

“Couldn’t do it,” said Con. “Old Marcus” — affection and 
not disrespect was implied by this designation of Mr. Peters, 
their scoutmaster — “Old Marcus had me around at his room 
night before last and read me a long lecture on scrapping 
with the Slabtowns. 

“Said that some of the scout council were complaining 
that we were stirring up trouble” — 

“Stirring up trouble, the old women,” snorted Red, “looks 
like stirring up trouble when a dozen of them jump on a 
fellow’s neck when he stooping to tie up his shoe and then 
start to kick him when he’s down.” 

“Aw, Red, you know you ought to have told ’em ‘a scout is 
a friend to all’ instead of breaking Tug Murphy’s nose, and 
binging Chuck Smith in the eye and then leadin’ those nice, 
kind, good little boys right where a lot of rough, rude Foxes 
were playin’ duck on rock,” laughed Phil Saunders. 

“Well, just the same, fellows, some of the men on the coun- 
cil are kicking to Mr. Peters,” continued Con. “Say that 
14 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 1 5 

our fighting back is contrary to the ‘ethical principles of scout- 
ing’ and that they are sure the Slabtowns wouldn’t molest 
us if we weren’t doing something to rile ’em. He hinted that 
some of them wanted me reduced to the ranks for setting fire 
to their rotten old shack. 

“All the Slabtowns promised to do to me was to shave my 
head, take off my clothes and paint me green and then throw 
me through the window right in the middle of all those girls 
and women at the First Church chicken supper. 

“An’, before they went away, they broke my glasses, beat 
me up when I was tied and took my scout’s badge away from 
me. 

“I told Mr. Peters that and he wanted to know what I had 
done to make the Slabtowns so peevish and pretended to be 
surprised and shocked when I explained that I lit in with a 
club when I found five of them had caught Scout and taken 
him into that old cellar hole on the old Barnes lot and were 
going to pour kerosene on him and set it afire.’’ 

Here was cause enough for 
war. Scout, the little dog who 
had shared the beds and meals 
of the whole patrol on many a 
hike and in many a camp, the 
companion of their adventures 
on the Elbow River in the 
north woods, was as much 
member of the patrol as any of 
the eight boys. There was not one of them who would not 
have made battle with the whole Slabtown gang single-handed 



16 The Fox Patrol in the Open . 

in his defense. The story of how Con Colville had deliber- 
ately submitted to capture by the five toughs that he might 
lift the endangered pup out of the deep pit; how he had been 
seized, struck and dragged down while standing coolly with 
outstretched arm to enforce upon Scout’s loyal little heart the 
command to “go home’’ was proudly recorded in picture and 
words in the patrol “log book.” 

“Yep,” went on Con. “He told me that the way the Foxes 
ran after and persecuted those Slabtown kids was getting to be 
a scandal to the whole town and ‘begged’ that we would 
‘restrain our bellicose and pugnacious tendencies in the future 
for the good of ourselves, the troop and the scout movement.’ 

“Then he winked.” 

Laughing at this chacteristic action on the part of the scout- 
master they respected and trusted, the Foxes scrambled to 
their feet, the five minutes rest done. 

“Just the same,” said “Marion” Gilmor, “I’m not stuck 
on this stunt of taking a bunch of girls out to pick May- 
flowers. It’s all right for that kid sister of mine and the 
Henderson girls and Mary Nichols to get up these ‘Girl 
Guides’ if they would rather do that than have hen parties — 
but they ought to do their ‘guiding’ in the park instead of 
butting in on a troop hike like this.” 

This explains the mission which put the Foxes on the river 
path thus early. They were to go ahead, blaze a trail, locate 
the hillside, where the flowers grew in the greatest profusion 
and select a sheltered and pretty location for the noon-day halt 
and lunch. The rest of the troop, with a bevy of girls from 
the high school ostensibly bent on securing flowers but really 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. I 7 

curious to see what this “scouting” which took so much of the 
time and interest of their boy friends was like, were to follow.- 

The usual path, along the strip of gravel beside the river, 
was under water, for the river was filled to the brim with 
melted snow from the forests and marshes many miles to the 
north. Its fringe of water-willows was half under water and 
the branches of those sturdy shrubs were bent and matted with 
bark, sticks, grass and other light drift brought down by the 
spring freshet which had swept the river free from ice. 

Going was not bad on the dry turf at the top of the bank, 
but between the Foxes and the inland bluffs lay a low, ploughed 
field — a paste of mud with water drained from the high land 
around it. 

But their progress was soon halted by a tangled thicket 
of prickly ash, the most vicious of all forest growths. To 
its right ran the swollen river and to its left, lay the field of 
mud. Left to themselves, the Foxes would have wallowed 
through the mud or paid toll of a few scratches and some 
torn clothing for a passage of the thicket. 

“But those blame girls,” said Tom Coleman, “won’t 
want to get their tootsies dirty in the mud and it would take 
all day to untangle their skirts and hair if they tried to get 
through this prickly ash.” 

Cutting a trail wide enough to accommodate skirts and long 
hair through thirty yards of tangled thicket is either work or 
fun — as you take it. 

To the Foxes it was the latter. Grasping a sapling as thick 
as a hoe handle with his left hand, Tom bent it sharply down 
and struck one blow on the tense side with his tomahawk-like 


18 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

hatchet. Though the little tool weighed only fourteen ounces, 
the swift swing given its two-foot straight handle sent its keen 
edge through the wood fibers, strained so they parted at a touch, 
with a single blow. Tom turned and threw the tree with its 
hard, sharp thorns into the swirling water. As he did so, Ole 
Sorensen, hunting knife in hand, stepped into his place and 
severed another with two long, drawing cuts. 

So they went at it, making the most of natural openings 
and stepping in turn into the rapidly lengthening tunnel as 
scout after scout backed out dragging his load of brush. 

“Well this sure is worth chopping into,” said Charlie 
McGregor, as they emerged at the far side of the thicket. 

It surely was. 

Giant elms, gray-green with their budding leaves, arched a 
path which wound through a wealth of lesser growth, likewise 
wearing the first, faint color of spring, to the shadow of a steep 
hill, so steep it might almost be termed a bluff, which rose 
squarely across their path. 

It marked the point where the long bluff, a quarter of a 
mile inland, turned abruptly back to the river’s edge. It was 
heavily wooded with massive butternuts, which were the haunt 
of many squirrels in the fall. At its foot ran the deep, narrow 
creek which drained the ploughed basin in ordinary seasons. 

Now it was swollen with the murky backwater of the 
flooded river. Instead of a narrow creek which could be 
jumped by an active scout, or crossed on a foot log by the less 
vigorous, a stretch of water thirty yards wide and, as they 
knew, some eight feet deep against the farther bank, barred 
the progress of the Foxes. 


III. 


THE AMBUSCADE. 

Here was a situation to test the pioneering skill of the Foxes. 

For a hardy scout to cross, as did Eddie Austin, on a six- 
inch foot-log with three feet of water above it and four feet 
more below was a difficult, dangerous, but not impossible feat. 
For girls to do so, encumbered by skirts and unused to waist- 
deep wetting in water with the snow-chill still in it, was out of 
the question. 

Eddie made an exploring trip inland, the reason of his 
hazardous crossing to the firm, dry footing of the steep bank, 
only to return with a report that the backwater had flooded 
clear into a marsh which lay next to the bluff. 

They must either arrange a crossing where they were or 
abandon the trail they had picked, turning back half a mile 
to blaze another along the top of the inland bluff. 

“If we were to fell this elm across the stream it would make 
a good foot-log,” suggested Ole. 

“All right,” answered Mat Gilmor, “if it’s your tree and 
you’ve got a grown-up ax.” 

That settled this suggestion. Even had they the tools for 
so big a job the Foxes were awake to the fact that trees were 
quite as much the property of the man who owned the land as 
his fences or his cows, and respected them accordingly. 

“Mrs. Harmond told me,” reflected Tom Coleman, recall- 

19 


20 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

ing their summer on the island with Mr. Harmond and his 
Ojibway wife, “that an O jibway war party headed south was 
ambushed by the Dakotahs at this hill and fought here all night 
by moonlight, firing at the flash every time a Dakotah shot. 

“She says, too, that if you come here the third night after 
the harvest moon is full and fire a rifle its flame will show you 
the ghosts of the ’Jibways socking it to the Dakotas just as 
they did over a hundred years ago.” 

“May be so, may be so, but I’d rather those Injuns would 
come along with a canoe when you whistled and take you 
across,” said Phil Saunders. “If those redskins are bound to 
stick around here they might as well do something useful.” 

“Hi,” hailed Eddie, “there’s a bunch of logs floating in the 
backwater a hundred yards up stream. Let’s build a raft and 
ferry them across.” 

Instantly belts were stripped off and poles cut to make a 
raft of most approved pattern. Regardless of the wet, the 
Foxes waded in and soon had a substantial three-log raft 
lashed together and floated down to the crossing point. 

“This raft will only carry four,” said Charlie McGregor. 
“It’ll take two to pole it and that means only two girls can be 
taken across at a time. Let’s make it a ferry.” 

This was easily done by attaching long ropes of wild grape 
vine to the raft at either end and securing them to trees at either 
side. It was now possible for the raft to be pulled across to the 
farther bank, loaded, and then pulled back empty, for another 
lot of passengers. 

“Pretty good job, I call that,” said Tom Coleman, sur- 
veying the work of the patrol with pride. “Guess those girls 


21 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 
will get some high-toned ideas of scouting when they come 
through that cleared trail and find this ferry waiting for them. 

“Guess we’d better hurry on before they — Uh, what’s up.” 

Scout was bounding down the hill toward them, his bushy 
tail between his legs, uttering yelps half of pain and half of 
defiance. A volley of stones kicked up the forest mould and 
thudded against the trees around him. As the Foxes crowded 
to the water’s edge more stones, flung from the top of the bluff, 
splashed water in their faces. 

Without an instant’s hesitation 
the little dog plunged in, swam 
the creek and then, alternately 
shaking the water from his shaggy 
coat and stopping to bark a chal- 
lenge, faced the crest from which 
he had so lately fled. 

The Slabtowns, following the top of the long bluff, had 
arrived squarely opposite the Foxes just as their labors of chop- 
ping and ferry building were over. 

Lacking discipline — which is but another word for self-con- 
trol — they failed to lay a successful ambush. Two or three of 
their number could not miss the rare pleasure of stoning the 
little dog, with the result that they missed the bigger game 
which would have walked unsuspectingly among them in five 
minutes. 

Nevertheless they barred the trail. To cross the open 
stretch of water and climb the steep bank under a hail of stones 
thrown by a party twice their number, was a desperate enter- 



prise. 


22 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

To turn back and meet Che laughter of their fellow scouts 
and the still more dread derision of the girls; to abandon the 
work done with so much ingenuity and labor to the destructive 
hands of their enemies, would be humiliating in the extreme. 

“We simply must not get into another scrap,” declared Con, 
almost tearfully, to the hasty council of war. “If we do we’ll 
have every knocker in town down on us, no matter how much 
in the right we are.” 



“That’s right,” added Tom Coleman. “Old Granny 
Duck-foot,” — an abusive but apt description of the most bla- 
tantly peaceful of their critics — “said at the last council meet- 
ing that if we would only ask the Slabtowns politely to let us 
alone, they’d do it.” 

“All right, we’ll do it now,” cried Con, stepping into the 
open and making the “peace-sign” — which even the most 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 23 

savage races know and respect — by raising his right hand high 
in air, palm to the front, to show he carried no weapon. 

Stones whizzed about him, coming straight as bullets and 
not in the pronounced curve of the thrown rock. 

“Sling-shots,” was Red’s warning. It was true. Their 
enemies had resorted to the vicious combination of crotched 
stick and heavy rubber bands which sends a stone straight and 
swift with force enough to draw blood, and even to stun at 
short ranges. 

Regardless of the storm of missiles singing about his head. 
Con stood motionless. 

“Won’t you please stop and let us cross,” he hailed. “We 
mean no harm to you and we are on a public path through 
these woods.” 

Derisive laughter, insults too dirty to remember, much less 
to print, and more stones were the answer to this pacific request. 


IV. 


BEATEN BACK. 

Con turned contemptuously on his heel and walked slowly 
back, still under fire — but the range was too great for the light 
stones from the sling-shot, which pattered around him, to inflict 
great damage, even when they struck his back. 

Trembling with wrath, which turned his freckled face white 
and brought tears to his eyes. Con unbuckled the belt which 
held his hatchet and hunting knife, rolled it up, stowed it in 
his pack and buckled it in beyond any possibility of reaching 
in a moment of passion, the weapons it supported. 

“This is a free, public way which has been used ever since 
Indian times, and I have as much right on it as those toughs,’* 
he said. “I’m going across and I’m going up that hill, just 
as I have a right to, and they can do what they like about it.’’ 

It was a wild proposition and every one of Con’s followers 
knew it. But they were loyal to their leader and would follow 
where he led regardless of risks. He had said nothing about 
their going with him but if Con Colville, gone suddenly crazy, 
was going to tackle such odds he would not face them alone. 

“I counted them when we saw them on the hill,’’ said Tom 
Coleman, aside, to Red Nichols, “there are fifteen of them.” 

“Well, laughed Red, “let’s be glad there aren’t twenty. 
Two to one isn’t such bad odds.” 

Despite the righteous anger which led him, Con had not 
wholly lost his customary cunning. Unslinging his pack he 
24 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 25 

bound it tightly to his left arm — with its thick blanket, grub 
sack and cooking tins, it was an ample shield against any stone 
which could be shot from a sling or thrown with one hand. 

His companions followed his example, even to the extent of 
putting all steel weapons beyond their reach. They knew 
that they were flying in the face of a strong faction of public 
opinion and that the use of any weapons other than those pro- 
vided by nature would result in overwhelming condemnation. 

Yet it is hardly in the nature of any red-blooded boy to 
tamely submit to injustice and insult, and in their hot hearts 
the Foxes felt that right and fairness would be on their side 
in the coming encounter. 

Con, Red, Phil Saunders and McGregor, the last three the 
biggest members of the patrol, were the first to make the pas- 
sage of the creek. Their packs, held above their heads, ef- 
fectually warded off the stones which whizzed around them 
as Con hauled in, hand over hand, the rope fastened on the 
farther shore. 

As their raft bumped, they sprang ashore and even as they 
did so, it started back for the remaining four, under the im- 
pulse of a strong pull from the shore behind them. 

Now was the time when the Slabtowns, had they been well 
organized, might have fallen upon the divided patrol and in- 
flicted upon it an overwhelming defeat. The four boys who 
crouched behind a butternut clump for shelter could not hope 
to stand against the united attack of fifteen assailants. They 
must surely be overcome before the raft could cross again with 
their small reinforcements, who could in turn be beaten down 
before they were fairly landed. 


26 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

But the Slabtowns were not of the metal to stand even the 
little punishment this would entail — they preferred to wait in 
hiding behind logs and stumps at the top of the bluff for the 
attack to come to them. 

Hardly had Eddie, Ole, Mat and Tom sprung ashore than 
Con, forgetful now of his intention to walk passively up the 
steep path and let the Slabtowns stone him if they dared, 
yelled : 

“Charge.” 

It is always a word to fire the most sluggish blood. To the 
maddened Foxes it brought a fury which they could not be- 
lieve in calmer moments. 

Up — up, they went. Clutching at trees and bushes to aid 
their climb; stumbling and digging their nails into the forest 
carpet of last year’s dead leaves; holding their pack-sacks 
raised to protect their heads from the stones which rained 
around them; dodging behind trees; yelling in anger ’till they 
grew short of breath. 

It was a mad and foolish charge, yet made with a high 
courage worthy the age of chivalry — and after all, the age 
of chivalry was but the boyhood of the world and lives again 
in every clean-minded high-spirited boy. 

Faster and faster flew the stones. The range grew short. 
The Slabtowns were now certain of their aim. The tense rub- 
ber bands delivered their missiles with a force which blackened 
the flesh under clothing and drew blood from that exposed. 

Without means of returning this fire, breathless, battered, 
bloody, the Foxes recoiled — as all merely human flesh must 
under such circumstances. Regretfully, sullenly, they slipped 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 27 

from tree to tree in their slow retreat. Blood flowed from a 
ragged gash in Con Colville’s cheek. Phil Saunders* right 
arm hung limp with the pain of a bruised shoulder. Not a 
scout of them but was marked with punishment. 

Back they came, all but Ole Sorensen. There was that in 
his blood which set him stark mad once he was involved in 
combat. It carried him now straight up the bluff, regardless 
of stone after stone striking him, square into the thickest of the 
Slabtowns. 

A dozen arms seized him and hurled him backward down 
the steep bank. 

He rolled over and over, tearing up bushes and breaking 
branches in his efforts to check his fall. 

This the remaining Foxes saw from the shelter of the clump 
of trees which had covered their landing and now their retreat. 

Ole gained his feet and, screaming with rage, started once 
more to scramble up the bluff. 

A stone from a sling-shot struck him and he fell limply back- 
wards. 

Then Con Colville did a deed such as wins the Medal of 
Honor or the Victoria Cross in combats which the world ap- 
plauds. 

Dashing from cover, he reached the prostrate body of his 
senseless comrade a scant second before a trio of Slabtowns 
from above. 

Halting their rush by the sheer audacity of his counter at- 
tack, he bent, lifted Ole’s limp body across his shoulders and 
turned toward his comrades. 

No spirit of chivalry restrained his assailants. A blow from 
behind drove Con to his knees. Hampered by his helpless 



HE LIFTED HIS COH- 
RADES LIMP BODY 






The Fox Patrol in the Open. 29 

burden he could neither rise nor ward off the kicks and blows 
directed at the conscious and unconscious scout alike. 

His friends were coming, but all but one were too slow. 

Eyes flashing green fire, body quivering with anger. Scout 
hurled himself into the fray. 

Well for the little dog that day that wolf rather than bull- 
dog blood coursed through his loyal veins. 

No setting his teeth and hanging on lay in his inherited 
fighting tactics. A jump in, a snap of sharp fangs and a jump 
out before kick or blow could reach him; now a lunge at a 
leg; now a spring at a throat — and with it all the screaming 
snarl of the fighting wolf which carried as much terror as did 
his teeth. 

It lasted but a moment. 

A rush by Red and Charlie drove back Con’s demoralized 
assailants while Eddie and Tom dragged rescuer and rescued 
back to safety. 

It was Scout’s wet tongue licking the blood from the wound 
on his cheek which awoke Con to consciousness again. 

A pair of loving, brown eyes, quite different from those 
green ones of the yellow, fighting-demons, who had come to his 
rescue in the nick of time, looked into his and Scout’s wagging 
tail seemed to say : 

“Just a little return for your help in that torture pit, my 
comrade.’’ 

Con looked around. 

Ole lay beside him, very still and white. Eddie Austin was 
writhing with the deadly pain of a blow in the pit of the 
stomach. Tom hurried past him to the firing line beyond, his 
hat full of stones gathered at the river’s brink. 


V. 

AN UNEXPECTED VICTORY. 


Con took one look at the harm his mad anger had caused 
and then buried his face in his hands while hot tears of shame 
coursed down his cheeks. 

It was so the four uninjured Foxes found him when they 
returned triumphant from repulsing an attempt of the Slab- 
towns to follow up their advantage by crossing the creek. 
The Slabtowns were not the sort who dare face equal num- 
bers and a very short look at the four determined foes to whom 
they must cross four at a time satisfied them about crossing 
while a few rocks, sped by Charlie McGregor’s famous “pitch- 
ing wing,” taught them the natural beauties and advantages 
of their original lines at the top of the bluff. 

“Boys,” said Con’s broken voice. “I didn’t have any busi- 
ness leading you into it. Ole’s dead — ” 



30 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 31 

“Naw, he ain’t,” came Red’s reassurance. “Just suffering 
from a rush of Norwegian blood to the brain complicated by a 
biff on the coco which didn’t even raise a lump under his hat 
and that straw thatch of his.” 

“and Eddie,” continued Con’s self-accusation, “is — ” 

“Sitting up and rubbing arnica on his little tummy,” was 
Eddie’s completion of the sentence. 

“and Old Marcus and the troop will come up and find us 
treed here and know we’ve been fighting again. I wouldn’t 
care if that meant just tying the can to me, but they’ll fire the 
whole Fox patrol. 

“And it’s all my blame fool fault and the Slabtowns will 
crow over us the rest of our lives.” 

“Crow! Not that bunch of dubs,” said Red, with a grin 
of pleasant recollection. 

“You were asleep and missed a most enjoyable party just 
at the far edge of the creek. 

“We had ’em where we wanted ’em for five minutes there — 
right at arm’s length — and what we gave ’em was a-plenty. 
They’re the sickest bunch of Unhappy Hooligans that ever 
wore black eyes. 

“Why, if you and Ole had been in the game, we’d have 
put that gang out of business for keeps. They finally ran away 
and didn’t come back ’till they saw us safe on this side of the 
water. 

“As for anybody finding out about this very pleasant time 
we’ve had” — and Red’s smile was one of bliss unalloyed 
though blood trickled from a split lip and one eye was turning 
purple — “we’ll fool ’em. The picnic wasn’t scheduled to start 


32 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

from the school house until ten. It’s only a quarter after now, 

and that means they won’t be here for an hour. 

“We’ll be half way down to Aunty Gwendolyn’s by then 
and between her Injun herbs and the make-up box Elizabeth 
Bites-a-Bear Harmond forgot when she went back to Carlisle 
and her dramatic club last fall, it’ll be a pity if we don’t show 
pretty faces when we show up again — ” 

“But I’ll have to report this to Mr. Peters anyhow,” put 
in Con. 

“Sure, but what you report to Old Marcus, and what the 
whole troop blabs to the whole town are mighty different 
things. He’ll see our side and act square so long as a lot of 
old women on the council don’t order him to act ugly.” 

Con’s humiliation was not 
lightened, but this wise and kindly 
counsel enabled him to set it aside 
and turn his attention to the work 
at hand. He directed that each 
scout cut a stout club, three feet 
long, to be carried in his left hand 
until close quarters were gained, 
and that each fill the pockets in 
reach of his right hand with 
stones. All were to use their 
packs as shields, as in the first 
disastrous attempt. 

The orders were given by Con, 
I but the suggestions were Red’s. 
Eddie cut his sapling to a six- 



OLD MARCUS 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 33 

foot instead of a three-foot length and a secret, sickening 
fear in the hearts of his comrades went to sleep forever as 
he drew the crumpled patrol pennon from the pocket into 
which he had thrust it when he stripped it from the staff 
torn from his hands by the Slabtowns, and tied the cherished 
green and yellow totem to its new staff. 

Deliberately, coolly, the Foxes crossed the creek for a second 
attack. There was no mad rush as the first time, but in- 
stead, a slow, determined advance. 

No hostile yell, not even a stone greeted their attack. 

Unmolested, they wound their way up the zig-zag path to 
see, on crowning the bluff, the Slabtowns in panic-stricken flight 
a quarter of a mile before them. 

Shaken by the punishment they had received at close quar- 
ters, with no confidence in the courage of themselves or their 
comrades, the toughs viewed the return of the Foxes to the 
attack after the suffering of their first disaster, as something 
unnatural and therefore to be dreaded. 

In the quiet resolution of their foes they saw not courage 
but the confidence of superior strength — perhaps it meant rein- 
forcements, perhaps firearms — in either case no gangster cared 
to stay and find out alone, and not one of them trusted a 
single companion to stick with him. 

It is the way of mobs, toughs and savages. 

It was with the memory of this encounter in his mind that 
the Rev. Redmond Percy Nichols, missionary of the gospel 
to the I go rotes, the deadly virus of a poisoned arrow stealing 
through his veins, led, in after years, his dusky converts to a 
second charge against still more savage head-hunters and heard 


34 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

their voices raised in a hymn of thanksgiving that they, their 
women and their little ones had been saved from cruel death 
or crueller captivity before the poison stilled his heart — hymns 
which quickly changed to wails of barbaric mourning for the 
knightly churchman who had first taught them how a good 
man should live and then shown them how a brave man can 
die. 


VI. 


MR. PETERS TRIUMPHANT. 

Mat Gilmor was in his element. 

He was sitting on his heels before just the right sort of a 
fire — a fire built of dry hardwood which gave off intense heat 
but little smoke. Not a stick of it was so thick that it could 
not be broken in the bare hands, or longer than the distance 
from a scout’s elbow to his finger tips. A neat pile of similar 
fuel lay in reach of his left hand and Red Nichols, Con Col- 
ville and Ole Sorensen were busy rustling for more. Phil 
Saunders and Eddie Austin were delegated to bring water 
from the river. Tom Coleman, cookee, stood ready to obey 
Mat’s slightest order. 

Mat was the cook of the Foxes — and proud of it. 

He had an audience to tempt his skill to the utmost, a bevy 



35 


36 The Fox Patrol in the Open, 

of girls crowding close on either hand or daring the stinging 
smoke to the leeward of the fire in their efforts to see how a 
mere boy could prepare a hearty, appetizing meal with only 
the rude utensils of those who “go light,” helped out by 
woods makeshifts. 

The plan of the Foxes to press on down river and stay out 
of sight until they could remove from their faces and clothes 
the signs of battle had been frustrated. 

Attempting to stick close to the river’s edge, they found 
what they had always known as a meadow changed by the 
high water, into a marsh which, judging from the known ex- 
tent of low land, must reach for nearly a mile down the river. 

Retracing their steps to seek feasible going further inland 
they had run squarely into Mr. Peters and the advance patrols 
of the picnic party pressing more closely on their trail than 
they anticipated. 

Bruises and blood-stains confirmed for Mr. Peters the hints 
he had taken from the torn up ground and scattered stones 
he had seen just beyond the ferry. He made no comment 
while the girls and scouts of the picnic party were near, but 
joined himself to the Foxes, who still kept the lead, and 
walked with Con, to hear his report. 

Without attempting to conceal anything. Con told the whole 
story, from the time Scout’s retreat gave them warning, to the 
moment the Foxes reached the top of the bluff to find their 
assailants fleeing in panic. He accepted without reservation 
all the blame for the encounter and then waited the words of 
condemnation which he felt his due. 

To his surprise, they did not come. 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 37 

“You explained to the Slabtowns that you did not intend 
to interfere with them and demanded free passage on a public 
path?” Mr. Peters asked. 

“Yes.” 

“And you simply went across and started up the bluff with- 
out throwing any stones or making any threats?” 

“Well, we didn’t manage to do anything or didn’t threaten 
to do anything — but I guess we would have tackled them if 
we had reached the top. When the stones began to hit us 
we got plenty mad.” 

“But you didn’t throw a stone or strike a blow except to 
repel an attack you couldn’t escape — all the fighting you did 
was in defense of yourselves?” 

“Yes, that’s a fact,” said Con. 

“Could you identify any of the gang which attacked you?” 
was the next question. 

“I guess that among us we could name all of them.” 

“Then, by ginger” — Mr. Peter’s one and only expletive — 
“this is the last time that Slabtown gang will attack any of my 
scouts. 

“We’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Con. They made 
the mistake of their lives when they assaulted you boys south 
of that granite block below the bridge. That block not only 
marks the city limits, but the southern boundary of Green 
county as well. 

“The Saukville police won’t touch any of the boys in that 
gang because ‘Tug’ Murphy’s father is the boss who made our 
mayor. But his pull don’t run down here. 

“We’re in Pike township of Johnston county, where Henry 


38 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

Carter is justice of the peace — and Henry Carter is our friend 
Mr. Harmond’s son-in-law.” 

Mr. Peters chuckled softly to himself as he mapped out a 
legal campaign which ended with every one of the Slabtowns 
under a jail sentence, suspended for so long as the boys served 
as scouts under Mr. Peters. 

Which was the origin of the second Saukville troop, known 
as the Dakotahs, in memory of that fierce battle at the ford; 
a troop which, however unwillingly it came into existence, de- 
veloped into as wiry and enterprising a bunch as ever slung 
packsacks and started on a hike. 

This is how it happened that the Foxes, somewhat freshened 
up, but with not a few plastered cuts and purple bruises to 
cause wondering comment, waited at the site they selected for 
a noon halt and joined in the pleasant relaxation of one of the 
first genuine scout picnics on record. 


VII. 


WALLED IN BY FIRE. 

“Tea, coffee or cocoa?” said Mat Gilmor to the group of 
girls around his cooking fire. 

“Fiddle-sticks,” said his sister Ellen, “You’re a great cook, 
you are. You’ve only got one pail to make all three in, and 
that’s only got boiling water in it.” 

“Go on, name your poison, and I’ll have it ready in one 
minute. Tea? Oh, very well, then, pass up your cup.” 

Mat lifted the lid of his pail of boiling water, using the 
forked end of his “kettle” lifter, cut from a bush five minutes 
before by Tom, to take hold of its hot knob and filled the cup 
with clear, hot water. 

“Tea bag,” he said, and Tom handed him a bit of tea as 
big as a walnut, tied up in a clean cotton rag with a long 
string attached. 

“Leave it in, sis, ’till the color suits you,” Mat said, drop- 
ping this contrivance into the cup, “then haul out the tea by 
the string, add sugar from this sack, and drink it.” 

To make cocoa for Beth Henderson was, of course, a 
simple matter. Mary Nichols’ coffee involved a resort to a 
small can of patent coffee powder, half a teaspoonful of which, 
dissolved in a cup of hot water, turned the trick. 

Refilling the hot water pail from the pail of fresh water 
brought from the river by the “water rustlers,” was Tom’s task. 
He also was charged with occasionally stirring the pail in which 

39 


40 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

the pea and meat meal, known as Erbswurst, was slowly sim- 
mering to a thick, nutritious soup. 

The twenty minutes required to cook this important part of 
the meal over, Tom picked up the kettle lifter and hooked 
the stub of a branch left at the end opposite to the crotch “lid 
lifter” under the bail, swung it dexterously from the wooden 
crane where it hung above the fire, and began filling the cups, 
which the girls thrust eagerly toward him, with the savory mess. 

Mat was very busy making corn pone, keeping two frying 
pans going at once. Into the sizzling grease left by frying 
bacon, fished out and kept warm on a plate beside the fire, he 
poured the thick, yellow batter, patted it flat and thin with a 
spoon, covered the frying pan with a tin plate and set it upon 
a bed of glowing embers raked to one side of the fire — for 
the secret of making good corn pone is to let it cook slowly, 
that it may be done in the center and yet not burned on the 
outside. 

Mat’s work was rendered easy by the fact that he made 
up his corn pone mixture at home — following a recipe dis- 
covered in the pages of Outing — and carried it a-field all 
ready to add water ’till a thick batter was secured, and bake. 
His proportions were : 2 quarts of corn meal, 1 quart of white 
flour, 1 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt and 8 teaspoonfuls 
of baking powder. 

Properly cooked, this made a rich, toothsome cake. The 
bacon grease in which it was baked made butter unnecessary 
and, served with crisp slices of bacon and backed by rich pea 
soup, it made a meal on which the scouts of the Fox patrol 
were able to travel fast and far. 


41 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

“Well, it’s certainly good,” was Ellen Gilmor’s verdict on 
her brother’s cookery, “but I should think you would get tired 
of all this work when you might just as well get mother to 
bake you some Johnny cake and carry it with you.” 

“That’s what they all say,” said Con, “until they take the 
long trail. You see, it’s this way, Johnny cake is about seven- 
tenths water. I f you are only going to need a pound of it, why 
you might as well take it out ready made, but suppose you 
are going to be gone long enough to need ten pounds — then 
you would be carrying seven pounds of water. 

“So on a long trip, it’s better to carry three pounds of corn 
meal and add the water when you need it.” 

Con had an interested and an interesting audience, and 
there’s no telling how long he might have held forth on his 
favorite subject of “going light” had not the troop bugle blown 
the assembly. 

From their scattered patrol camp fires the girls and scouts 
gathered to the central council fire kindled in a sheltered hol- 
low well down the long, narrow point to which the Foxes had 
guided the party. 

It was an ideal location for a picnic camp. Tall elms and 
butternuts rose on all sides. A knee-deep growth of heavy 
woods fern, still standing in thick, russet ranks where it had 
been killed by the fall frost, covered the earth save where it 
had been cleared away and gathered in great armfulls to fur- 
nish seats for the girls while they looked on at the various 
feats of strength and skill attempted by the scouts for their 
entertainment. 

These passed off as scout games do, with keen rivalry while 
they lasted, and hearty cheers for the winners at the end. 





we LIFTED THE SHIVERING- 
GIRL AND STARTED FORWARD 



The Fox Patrol in the Open . 43 

The big fire gave a welcome heat, for the sky, clear when 
the day began, was overcast with dull, gray clouds, and the 
wind, shifted to the north, was bitter cold. Those scouts who 
had brought full packs, got out their blankets and distributed 
them among the girls, many of whom were hardly dressed 
for roughing it. 

“Who would have thought it would have turned out so 
cold,” said Mary Nichols, as she wrapped Phil Saunders’ 
blanket around her. 

“There’s a smell of snow in the air,’’ said Phil, and turned 
to sniff the wind for a fuller confirmation of his prophecy. 

“There’s snow in it,’’ he said, “and smoke.’’ 

Charlie McGregor joined him. 

“Winter’s coming back all right,” was his verdict. 
“Shouldn’t wonder if we had a blizzard by night. You’re 
right about smoke, too. That’s strange; our’s was the only 
cooking fire to windward of here and Ole and I soused it with 
water and then piled dirt on it. 

“Let’s take a look for that smoke — everything’s dry as 
tinder and a brush fire wouldn’t do a thing but run before this 
wind. 

“Come on, girls, and do a little real scouting. You won’t 
see much here anyhow, and we’ll show you a little genuine 
work.” 

Nothing loath, the four girls, Mat’s sister, the Hendersons 
and Mary Nichols, rose and followed Charlie, Phil and 
Eddie, who were already started up the slope. Out of the 
corner of his eye Con saw the maneuver. He was one of 
those entered in the hatchet throwing contest and stood a good 


44 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

chance to win — but what was that to showing Ellen Gilmor 

the way through the woods, perhaps even speaking to her. 

Con’s courage was good enough 
when it came to a clash with the 
Slabtowns, it had been tested when 
he led the Foxes through the dismal 
swamps of the Bass Lake region on 
the trail of the yeggmen who held 
Scoutmaster Peters a prisoner — but 
it failed utterly when it came to fac- 
ing Mat Gilmor’s black-eyed sister. 

For this very reason the slender, 
dark-haired girl was to him the most 
interesting person in the world. 
Here on his own ground and on his 
own subject he had already been 
able to address her and perhaps an- 
other opportunity would offer. 

This flashed through his mind as he was called to toe the 
line, and without a moment’s hesitation he took careful aim 
and cast his tomahawk true to the mark he had selected — a 
slender sapling a good two feet to one side and a dozen 
beyond the dead trunk which was the official target. 

Without heeding the laughter which hailed his intentional 
failure, which threw him out of the contest, he recovered his 
ax and sped away in the wake of the scouting party. 

Two minutes later he stood panting beside them to con- 
template a sight at once so beautiful and so terrible as to make 
him forget his grim resolve to speak to Ellen again though it 
choked him. 



The Fox Patrol in the Open. 45 

The whole of the cut-over ground inland from the point 
upon which the camp was located was in flames. The dead 
leaves on the oak scrub which replaced the forest growth sent 
their flames sky-ward, underneath the smaller bushes and the 
dead grass burned fiercely. 

Eddie Austin dashed up out of the smoke. 

“The fire has reached the upper side of the point,” he 
gasped. “There’s no getting away there.” 

Hand over hand, Charlie hoisted himself into the upper 
branches of a tall tree. 

“The grass is on fire down river,” he called. 


VIII. 


THE FIGHTING LINE. 

Hie whole Ojibway troop and the young women and girls in 
its care were cut off on the long, narrow point made by the 
river’s turning back upon itself. 

On two sides of them the river in full flood forbade retreat. 

Escape landward was cut off by a leaping wall of fire. 

“Once in this fern, it’ll sweep the whole point, exclaimed 

Phil. 

Con set his whistle to his lips and blew : 

One long blast — “attention.” 

“Attention,” again and again. 

Many blasts, long, short, long, short, while his breath lasted 
— “danger, rally.” 

Then a success of short, sharp blasts — “come here.” 

Hardly had he ceased before the crashing of the brush be- 
hind them told the little party that the troop was rushing to 
the rescue. 

Mr. Peters took command: 

“All you girls run back to the council fire and wait. Gather 
up everything lying around loose and cram it into the pack- 
sacks. Get everything in shape so we can carry it away. 

“Gophers,” he shouted, “get to work at the left. Panthers 
next. Squirrels, Doves, Wolves, Rabbits. 

“Fight back the fire when it tries to cross this wagon track. 

46 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 47 

“We must make our stand here for if it gets across it will 
sweep the fern and brush to the end of the point and there will 
be no saving the girls. 

“Con, you and the Foxes skirt the point and see if there is 
any way of getting them off of it.” 

These were the general orders for a battle as grim as any 
ever waged between human foes. 

Only a dim wagon track, grown over with grass, separated 
the heavy, inflammable fern growth from the brush fire raging 
toward it. 

Here the troop must make its stand and beat back the 
flames. 

Upon the Gophers the fire descended first. 

Sparks blown before the wind set the fern afire behind them 
and they leaped to beat out the blaze with their coats, soaked 
with water from the river. 

Little patches of fire, driven forward by the blast of the 
main conflagration, raced across the wagon track to be 
trampled and beaten out before they reached the fern. 

The hot, acid smoke of burning leaves stung their eyes and 
seared their throats — their very lungs felt full of ashes. 

Only their position by the river gave them a slight advan- 
tage — they were able to souse the coats with which they fought 
in the water while the patrols further inland — now engaged 
with the advance skirmishers of the fire — must fight with dry 
weapons. 

“Fatty Felix,” leader of the Gophers, raged in the van. 

“Sock it to it,” he yelled. “Stone-wall. Hold ’em.” 

Then, to Louis Kaiser, leader of the Panthers : 


48 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 



“Don’t need help here. Hold your own line.” 

A clump of dead birch trees caught fire in front of him and 
the flames flashed over him, singeing the hair from his head, 
but he fought on regardless, beating at the smoldering fern. 

No more rushing to the river to wet coats now, the attack 
was too fast and furious. 

Slowly the fire burned out in the brush before the Gophers, 
but now the Panthers were hotly engaged and, on their right, 
the Squirrels were choping desperately to clear away a clump 
of sumac, ready to burn like gun powder, which rendered their 
part of the line particularly weak. 

Up and down the whole front Scoutmaster Peters ran and 
shouted. 

Here a word to encourage the hard-pressed Panthers. 

There a pause to direct the chopping of the Squirrels. 

Again a halt to advise the leaders of the Wolves and Rab- 
bits to detail a scout each to run back and forth to the water’s 
edge, exchanging wet coats for dry. 



The Fox Patrol in the Open. 49 

Over all the smoke and sparks hung in a thick cloud, ob- 
scuring the leaden sky, and the heat waves concealed the chill 
of the north wind. 

Into this confusion Con plunged to find and report to Mr. 
Peters. 

“No chance to escape, sir,” he shouted above the roar of 
the approaching flames. 

“The river is up to the very top of the bank and every log 
has been floated off down river. 

“But I believe we can burn off the fern from the hollow 
where we made the council fire down to the end of the point. 
That will give us a chance to escape.” 

Mr. Peters approved this plan : 

“We’ll hold this road as long as we can and trust that 
when we are driven back you will have a safe place burned 
off for us.” 

Con’s plan was simple enough. 

It was to scorch the down-wind end of the point free of 
inflammable stuff, leaving a space offering no fuel to the flames 
to which the troop and the girls might retreat. 

He dashed back, noting as he did so, a dozen places where 
sparks carried by the wind over the heads of the fighting line 
had started little detached fires behind them. 

To Mrs. Coleman, Tom’s mother, who had come out as 
chaperone to the girls, he explained the part which she and her 
charges must play. They were to gather up all luggage and 
move closer to the fighting line, to the windward of the hollow 
in which the games had been held. 

Then the Foxes, bearing brands from the council fire, raced 


50 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

from side to side of the point, and soon a second wave of flame 
was in motion, sweeping away from them — preparing their 
place of refuge. 

But many minutes must pass before the strip of smoking 
ashes ahead would be cool enough to be stepped on and wide 
enough to keep the flames at their rear at a safe distance. 

All depended on the staying qualities of the scouts battling 
to keep the flames from leaping that narrow wagon track. 

Soon another danger became apparent, the second fire, it 
was true, was speeding forward before the wind but it was 
also creeping back toward them through the close-packed fern. 



IX. 


OUT OF THE FLAMES. 

“We girls musn’t let the boys do all the fighting,” called 
Ellen Gilmor, and slipping off the heavy woolen skirt she wore, 
used it to beat out a blaze kindled near the frightened group. 

In a moment a score more had followed her example and 
the fighting force was increased by half. 

They had enough to do to beat out the little spark-fires 
kindled in the rear of the main fighting line. 


The Foxes raced from point to point, beating down the 
back fire. 



51 



52 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

Nor were evidences that the fight at the wagon track was 
going against the troop lacking. Every now and then an ex- 
hausted scout, sick from inhaling smoke, would reel back 
among the girls, lie for a moment with his face to the ground, 
where the smoke was least, and then stagger back to the fight- 
ing line. 

A girl’s cotton petticoat caught fire but before it could harm 
her Red Nichols sprang upon her with a rush which knocked 
her down, and rolled her over and over until the flames were 
beaten from the cloth. 

Helpless, blinded by a puff of ashes which struck his eyes, 
a “Rabbit” was led from the battle front and turned over to 
the girls for such first aid treatment as they could give him. 
Other scouts, nearly asphyxiated by the smoke, were dragged 
in and laid beside him. 

“We’re losing ground,” was the message Mr. Peters sent 
Con. 

“You’ve got to hold it five minutes longer,” was the answer. 

They did. 

How they did it will always be a mystery, and most of all 
to those who stuck to the finish of those choking, gasping, dead- 
ly five minutes. 

Coats long since charred to cinders, they faced the flames 
with their bare hands. Then some one rushed along the line, 
passing to them skirts collected from the girls. 

These served to beat down the flames for a moment, but 
too many of them were of such flimsy material that they caught 
fire themselves. 

And no sooner was the enemy beaten back at one point than 
it crossed the road at another. 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 53 

Three times the sumac patch caught fire and three times 
the Squirels put it out. 

The Rabbits were outflanked by the fire, which caught the 
thick hazel brush which fringed the river on their side, and 
were compelled to fall back. 

The sumac patch flared into flame again. 

A birch tree in front of the Gophers fell forward, a mass 
of fire, making a bridge across the road for the blaze behind it. 

When the weakened fighters threw their full force upon this 
last peril, the fire crossed the road at a dozen other points. 
The Foxes charged to the rescue, with them half a dozen of 
the boldest girls. 

“Run for it,” gasped Con, “you’re almost cut off.’’ 

And at last they turned and ran, escaping the encircling 
flames by the pathway the girls and the Foxes had beaten in 
order to reach them. 

There was need of speed. The fern was thoroughly alight 
and though it did not make so lasting a fire as the dry scrub 
oak, the flames ran faster through it. So thick was the smoke 
that the fleeing scouts could not see one another at two yards’ 
distance and they were compelled to hold their breath as if 
under water. 

Fifty yards under such conditions may mean more labor and 
suffering than an ordinary mile run. 

Con ran with the rest, but always with the figure of Ellen 
Gilmor in sight before him. His boyish admiration for a 
pretty face and bright manner had grown in the last heated 
half hour with the discovery that she could think quickly and 
act bravely. 


54 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

Suddenly she tripped and fell. Con’s brain was reeling 
with the collapse of exhaustion as he stopped beside her and 
— bashfulness forgotten — gathered her up in his arms, sur- 
prised even in that moment of excitement to find that so little 
a girl could be so heavy. 

Blood pounding at his temples, he staggered forward with 
his burden, safely twenty yards away. 

Dimly he was aware of shouts and screams in the murk be- 
fore him as the routed picnic party rushed madly to the burned- 
over ground; of Shout yelping with pain; of the troop bugle 
blowing a gasping assembly to guide stragglers to safety; of 
Mr. Peters’ hoarse voice ordering every one to lie down to 
escape the worst of the smoke. 

Then he found his legs no longer hampered by the knee 
deep fern and his feet upon warm ashes. 


He had reached the refuge ground but the hot blast from 
behind which scorched his neck told him how narrow had been 
his escape. 



The Fox Patrol in the Open. 55 

Desperately seeking air for his unconscious burden and him- 
self, he swerved sharp to the right and reached the river’s 
bank. There he flung himself down, shielding the girl’s body 
from the hot cinders which rained upon them, with his own. 

A hat full of water thrown upon her hair saved it from the 
threatening sparks. 

Though fiery, the ordeal was brief. The fern burned like 
powder, with a flame sufficient to scorch the life out of any one 
caught in it, but it burned almost as quickly. At the edge of 
the burned space prepared by the Foxes the fire flared up in 
final fury and then sank down to rapidly dying embers. The 
blaze on the point was over while the scrub oak inland was 
still a mass of glowing coals and leaping flame. 

The air cleared rapidly of smoke. 

“Why, it’s cold,’’ said a voice beside Con, and he turned 
to find that he was kneeling with one arm around a wet-haired 
Topsy of a girl, her face one smudge of soot, her crimson 
sweater turned dark brown with dirt, and a badly scorched 
under skirt completing her costume. 

“Topsy” sat up somehow, without displacing the arm which 
Con, blushing fire-red through his mask of cinders, lacked 
either the power or the inclination to withdraw. 

“And it’s snowing,” said Ellen, and snuggled a little closer 
— if any girl should happen to read this it is for her to say 
whether this was because of the cold. 

“And wasn’t it a bully adventure,” she went on, “and I’m 
glad it was you who carried me out safe.” 

The still speechless Con found his blistered paw in the 
grasp of two small hands. 


X. 


CAUGHT IN A BLIZZARD. 

“Praise God from Whom all blessings flow” 

Husky, smoke-choked voices rose in the grand old hymn 
of thanks further down the point and guided Con and Ellen, 
still hand in hand, over the charred ground, between scorched 
tree trunks, through the thickly falling snow, to the rest of the 
party. 

A strange world, doubly strange Con dimly felt, because 
of something left behind forever in that blackened, fire- 
wrecked wood. All he knew was that he no longer feared 
the girl beside him, but had found in her a comrade, a comrade 
somehow more close to him than 
even the tried companions of his 
patrol. 

And for this newer friend’s 
sake he knew that he must press 
on faster toward the bright goal 
j of honor; must walk more 
straightly on the trail of truth and 
so be a little less unworthy of the 
.— friendship promised him by that 
hand-clasp. 

“Hi, look there,” Mat Gilmor shouted, with true brotherly 
brutality, “look at those two hand-holders. Been spoonin’ in 
the smoke, you two?” 



56 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 57 

Con’s anger flared up, but the girl’s quick tact averted a 
quarrel between the two over-strung boys. 

“Forget it. Mat,’’ she said. “I fell down and fainted back 
there in the fire and smoke and Con carried me out, and after 
the way you ran off and left me, I’m just hanging on to the 
only scout I can trust to take care of me. What’s more, just 
as soon as I get my face clean enough to make it worth while. 
I’m going to give him a kiss — which is more than you’ll get 
for the way you welcome a sister who came near getting as 
badly burned as one of your pancakes.” 

Loud laughter greeted the evident dismay with which Con 
heard this promise, and Mat, regardless of his sister’s protest, 
swung her up on his shoulder while he led three rousing cheers 
for Con. 

These were followed by cheers for the girls, for the troop, 
for Mr. Peters and for the snowstorm. 

Brought up in a small town, where “everybody knew every- 
body from grandfathers down,” there was much of hearty 
goodfellowship and nothing of silly sentimentality in the rela- 
tions of the boys and girls gathered for this eventful picnic, and 
Ellen’s frank adoption of Con Colville went at its true value 
as one of those honest boy and girl friendships which obtain in 
such favored communities. 

But cheer as they might, an impartial outsider would have 
seen little cause for rejoicing in the scorched and shivering 
party assembled on the point. . They were still the prisoners of 
the fire, which continued to burn in the wide brush field inland. 
Driven before a biting north wind, the snow was settling around 
them like a blanket. The Ojibway troop could not muster a 


58 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

whole coat between them. More than half of the girls had 
sacrificed their skirts to fire-fighting. The plight of the sound- 
est of them was far from enviable and there were those who 
suffered with serious burns. 

Wrapped in the few blankets which had escaped the hands 
of the fire-fighters, a half-dozen scouts lay on the bare ground. 
Around another, Frank Marshal of the Wolf patrol, a group 
worked to restore his smoke-choked lungs by artificial respira- 
tion. Red Nichols lay biting his scorched lips till they bled, 
to keep back the groans his blistered arms wrung from him. 
Across his legs lay Scout, moaning pitifully as Phil Saunders 
smeared his blistered paws with white ointment. “Fatty Felix” 
was laughing hysterically in an effort to conceal the agony his 
scorched head felt,' 1 now the excitement was passed. Ran 
Henderson of the Squirrels, was very white under his soot 
from loss of blood from a wound inflicted by his own hatchet 
while chopping at the sumac patch. Two others, youngsters 
of the Doves, actually slept the sleep of exhaustion. 

Those who stood were in hardly better condition. The 
tonic of excitement and the heat of the fire gone, they shivered 
’till their teeth chattered and their knees knocked together as 
the wintry wind struck their coatless bodies. 

“Well, we certainly are having a lot of weather,” said Tom 
Coleman’s mother, and the shivering party laughed at the joke. 

“Wouldn’t be bad weather, either, if we could only strike 
an average between that fire and this snowstorm,” put in Eddie 
Austin. 

In the hollow the council fire was rekindled with wood from 
high branches, which had escaped the flames of the burning 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 59 

fern. The sick and injured were borne to its side with tender 
care. The well huddled about it for comfort. 

A scouting party from the Gophers reported that the fire still 
raged up river, creeping up against the wind despite the blind- 
ing fall of snow. 

“But on the down-river side it’s burnt out,” said their leader, 
“and the snow has cooled off the ashes.” 

“We can’t stick it out here, that’s certain,” said Mr. Peters. 
“We’ll have to keep moving if we don’t want to freeze and we 
might as well be moving somewhere as be running around in 
circles here. Maybe we can make the Harmond farm. At 
least we can reach woods which have not been burned out and 
find material for brush shelters. Pity all this fern is gone, it 
would have made fine thatch.” 

So move it was. The injured were carried on stretchers to 
make which, coats being lacking, a dozen self-sacrificing scouts 
gave up their shirts. The rest bowed before the blast and 
trudged along, hardly seeing the ground beneath their feet in 
the blinding smother of that terror of the northwest, the 
blizzard. 

They were moving away from home, but even if the fire had 
not barred their way north, they could hardly have faced the 
storm, scantly clad as most of them were. 


The slow procession moved on and must keep moving until it 
found shelter or dropped with cold and exhaustion. 



XI. 

THE DARKEST HOUR. 


Courage is either of many kinds or else there are many things 
which pass as courage. Pride and anger sent the Foxes charg- 
ing up the bluff beyond the ferry in that fierce but almost for- 
gotten fight on the morning of this same day; the desperate 
instinct of self-preservation would have served the scouts of the 
Ojibway troop for their battle with the flames. 

But neither anger nor desperation could have served the 
troop and its convoy in the plight in which they found them- 
selves half an hour after commencing their march down stream 
in search of shelter. There were neither laughter, cheering 
nor sharp, shouted orders to urge them on. 

Yet no one faltered or complained. Frail girls, whose low 
shoes and thin stockings were no protection from the drifted 



60 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 6 1 

snow and whose once gay garments gave little shelter from the 
cold, struggled on in dim procession; scouts worn out with 
fighting fire summoned an unguessed extra strength from 
somewhere in their souls to aid them. The injured in the 
litters bore in silence the double punishment of cold and burns. 

To the Foxes Mr. Peters had assigned the task of 
finding the way and they stumbled on in the van while 
the scout master, with the Panthers, brought up the rear to see 
that no one straggled from the line and was left to lie perishing 
in the storm. 

Ole Sorenson stumbled over a pile of stones. 

“It’s the oven we built to roast corn when we came down 
river after wild grapes last fall,’’ he said, after feeling them 
over. 

“Only half a mile below the point,” was Tom Coleman’s 
comment. He laughed bitterly at the slowness of their pro- 
gress. 

“Harmond’s old hog barn is only a quarter of a mile 
ahead,” said Eddie Austin. “We might make ourselves 
pretty comfortable there. It’s a cinch these girls can’t go much 
further.” 

“Land between is always pretty marshy,” said Charlie Mc- 
Gregor,” bet it’s flooded now.” 

“Well, if it is, the fire won’t have reached the barn,” said 
Con. “Do you guess the girls can stand to do some wading?” 

“Anything to get some place where we can sit down and 
rest,” was Mrs. Coleman’s answer — the Foxes, like all the 
rest of the scouts, had each a girl in charge, to see that she 
kept moving and did not stray into the blinding blizzard. 








The Fox Patrol in the Open. 63 

“Tom, I spent a lot of time walking the floor with you when 
you were a baby, do you think you could carry me through this 
marsh now?” 

“Surest thing you know, mother,” was the prompt answer. 
“I’m big enough to do that all right, or to spank you if you 
holler, just as I bet you used to whale me.” 

And suiting the action to the word, he picked up his mother 
and started ahead at a trot. 

“Easy there, Tom,” cautioned Con. “Don’t run away 
from us for we’re too tired to hunt you up if you get lost. 
Wait ’till you get to the marsh. 

They had not far to go. Con, “feeling” ahead for the trail, 
which he followed part by instinct, part by the sense of trodden 
ground under his feet and most by the sullen murmur of the 
river at his right hand, felt the crackle of skim ice under his feet 
and then cold water pouring through his leggins. 

“Pass the word down the line,” he called back into the 
storm. “Prepare to wade. We’re nearing shelter.” 

Then, with a proud thrill at his new-found boldness, he 
turned to pick up Ellen Gilmor, but she evaded his arm only 
to step close and whisper in his ear: 

“Take Arne Henderson, poor little thing, she’s all in and 
has fallen down half a dozen times. There are more girls than 
scouts here anyhow and some will have to wade.” 

Taking orders was a rather strange, but not unpleasant, sen- 
sation to Con and, as bidden, he lifted up the shivering little 
Henderson girl and started forward. 

The going was desperately hard. The half frozen water 
chilled to the bone. Underfoot the ground was full of hum- 


64 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

mocks and stumbles, even falls in which both scout and girl 

went down into the water, were not uncommon along the line. 

In places the water was knee-deep and Con shivered an 
extra shiver for the girl wading bravely beside him. 

“Had he been mistaken in his guess where they were? In 
such a blinding storm a mistake would be easy — and in their 
present case fatal to some. Would this flooded marsh never 
end — it should not be more than three hundred yards wide at 
the most?” 

Such were the thoughts which tormented Con as he led the 
way. All he could do was to keep as straight a course as he 
could and hope that ultimately he would run up against high 
ground. 

The weight of the girl in his arms seemed to be tearing them 
from their sockets. The snow, driven by the wind against his 
back had long since soaked through his undershirt — his thick 
outer garment was a part of the stretcher on which Red 
Nichols, Scout clasped close to his breast for his own warmth 
and the comfort of the suffering little dog, was being borne 
somewhere back in the sad procession behind him. 

Con’s physical sufferings were no greater than those of any 
other in the party, but the added anguish of responsibility made 
him groan aloud. 

His was that darkest hour which always comes before the 
dawn. 

Determined to keep in touch with his only guide, the river, * 
he bore sharply to the right and nearly stumbled into deep, 
running water. Cautioning those in reach of his voice and 
bidding them pass the word along, he plunged forward again 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 65 

and hardly a minute later felt firm ground beneath his feet. A 
few yards further and he was brought up standing by a high, 
“hog-proof” fence of barbed wire. 

“The barn’s inland, to our left, about two hundred yards,” 
called Ole. 

With a last effort of his tortured arms Con lifted Arne 
Henderson over the obstruction and then gently dropped her 
on the far side. To climb himself and stand ready to receive 
Ellen and some other girl, whom he could not recognize in 
the storm and darkness, was the work of an instant. 

So they passed the formidable fence, each scout lifting a 
girl over, climbing himself and then pausing to receive a girl 
from the scout behind him. 

A glad hail from the left announced that the head of the 
column had reached the longed for shelter. 

Five minutes later, Mr. Peters, like the good leader he 
was, last to seek shelter strode up and took charge. 



XII. 


A SAFE GUIDE. 

“It was awful, but glorious,” said Mrs. Coleman. She 
sat wrapped in a blanket and leaning back on Tom’s strong 
shoulder. “I -can see how you boys love it and are always 
impatient to go back for more. It’s the woods instinct which 
is so strong in all we American people. My great-grandfather 
went into Kentucky with Daniel Boone and he followed Clark 
in his march to Vincenes. I fancy that this comes out in Tom 
and I’ll warrant that not one of you boys but can trace his 
folks back to the pioneer stock.” 

Mr. Harmond’s “hog barn” had been built many years 
before to shelter a large herd of swine, kept a mile from the 
house, in just such storms as this. Its heavily timbered roof 
was only four feet above the ground, it was open to the south 
along the whole front but at the back was heavily banked with 
earth. Nearly a hundred feet long and eight feet wide it 
offered ample shelter to the whole party. Each of the seven 
patrols had a big fire blazing in front of the section assigned 
to it and, despite the blizzard which howled in baffled rage 
above them, all were comfortable and cheerful. 

The elements, in long years of disuse, had purified the 
“barn,” great armfulls of fodder corn from a nearby field 
66 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 67 

made a comfortable bed and a working party had brought in 
most of a big pile of cord wood in to feed the fires. 

Once on the Harmond farm, their summer stamping ground, 
the scouts of the troop had been able to find their way to 
supplies whose existence was already known to them, using 
the fences for their guides. 

Only imperative “orders” had kept Con from heading the 
mixed patrol which felt its way along a mile of fence to the 
farm house. Once there it had been able to send a reassuring 
message by rural telephone to be passed around among anxious 
parents in town and to arrange that teams be sent out in the 
morning to bring in the whole party. Meanwhile, hospitable 
Mrs. Harmond had stripped her house of everything which 
might add to the comfort of her storm-blown guests and Mr. 
Harmond, his husky grandson and two hired men had helped 
carry a great supply of blankets, robes, rugs and even carpets 
to the hog barn. 

“Nobody ever catches cold so long as he keeps moving,” 
was Mr. Peter’s assurance when Mrs. Coleman expressed the 
fear that some of the girls at least must have suffered a dan- 
gerous chill. Events proved that his statement was correct. 

With the elasticity of youth and health all of the party had 
regained their spirits and were prepared to pass a merry even- 
ing in their novel surrounding. By contrast with the dangers 
and hardships through which they had passed to gain it, their 
present rude comfort gave a pleasure which no amount of 
easily obtained luxury could have afforded them. 

Even those suffering with burns were able to share the 
fun. Wrapped in all the available blankets, they had suffered 


68 


The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

less on the march than those 
able to walk and their bodies, 
clean and well conditioned with 
outdoor life, responded rapidly 
to the few simple remedies 
which their injuries demanded 
and which the first aid kits, 
carried by each patrol, supplied 
in plenty. 

Probably Scout, whose four feet were cruelly blistered 
from a dash through the embers of the council fire when called 
to follow the retreat before the onrushing flames, was the most 
seriously hurt of all the wounded. But his trust, as his affec- 
tion, was with those who tenderly cared for his hurts and he 
submitted to ointment and bandages with a feeble wag of the 
tail which doubtless meant: 

“It’s up to you, fellows, go as far as you like. I know 
you’re all friends of mine and will bring me around alright.’’ 

Fortunately the packsacks, to which they had clung through 
all their troubles, contained provisions ample for a couple more 
meals, so there was no more hunger than cold in the camp. 

“I recollect how spring behaved like this back in ’74,’’ said 
Mr. Harmond as he squatted with the Panthers before their 
fire. “Three times the ground was bare and dry and three 
times we had just sech a blizzard as this.” 

The Doves, who esteemed themselves some vocalists, were 
singing at their fire and the girls with them added their voices 
to the song. 

Further down the line champions from the Rabbits and 



The Fox Patrol in the Open. 69 

Wolves were pitted against each other in “Kim’s game,’’ a 
contest where a score or more small articles are exposed to the 
view of the contestants for a half-minute and then covered 
while each player makes a list of as many as he can remember 
— the longest correct list winning. 

At the Gophers’ fire the scouts carefully demonstrated the 
dozen or so knots and splices every good scout should know 
to a group of girls who sat with their bare feet tucked under 
them while their stockings hung steaming before the fire. 

Altogether it was a picture of peace and contentment which 
Mr. Peters reviewed as he made a trip of inspection from one 
end of the long shed to the other, sitting down at last before 
the fire shared by the Squirrels and Foxes — really two rousing 
fires lengthened out ’till they became one. 

He gave a sigh of relief, for though his career as the scout- 
master of a troop whose talent for getting into trouble was only 
surpassed by its genius for getting out again had hardened him, 
the day had been so strenuous as to shake even his iron nerve. 

“They’re great, Mrs. Coleman,’’ he said, “great. Take 
that boy of yours. I don’t believe there is a thing he don’t 
dare undertake and what’s more, he’s no more afraid of hard 
work than he is of danger.” 

Mrs. Coleman flushed with pride at this praise of her son. 
“I’ve always hoped he would prove himself the right sort, but 
well as he may do I fear he has little chance to distinguish 
himself in this troop for, as you say, Mr. Peters, they’re all 
great. 

“But I firmly believe that, after all is said, it’s to you we 
owe our lives today, for without your training, without disci- 


70 The Fox Patrol in the Open. 

pline, they would never had been able to hold back that fire 

however brave and determined they might have been.” 

‘‘Well, they manage to do pretty well without me, some of 
them,” said Mr. Peters. “Of course Tom has told you what 
he and the other Foxes did up north last winter. Perhaps, if 
you ask, he will tell you of a battle they fought to clear our 
path for us today. Which reminds me — 

“Con, do you guess the Slabtowns had anything to do with 
starting that fire in the brush?” 

But Con neither heard nor answered. He was sitting a 
little apart with Ellen Gilmor. Mr. Peters heard him say : 

“No, you don’t tip-toe to go quietly. Y ou keep your weight 
on the foot that’s planted ’till the other feels out a spot where 
it can be set down silently. Moccasins are — 

“So the boy becomes a man,” said Mr. Peters to Mrs. Cole- 
man. 

“She should be a safe, sweet guide on that dangerous trail,” 
said Mrs. Coleman. 


(The End) 











































































WAR 20 1912 








